Installation

We’ll start our DBL journey by installing development tools on a 64-bit Windows machine.

Step 1: Install Visual Studio 2022

To start, you need to install Visual Studio 2022. This is required for the MSBuild-based .NET Framework and Traditional DBL build systems. When developing for .NET 6+, this is not required but is still recommended for a better development experience.

  1. Download Visual Studio 2022: Visit the official Visual Studio download page and download the installer for Visual Studio 2022.

  2. Run the installer: Open the downloaded installer and proceed with the installation.

  3. Choose workloads: During the installation process, select the .NET desktop development workload. This workload includes necessary tools and libraries for DBL development.

Step 2: Download Synergy/DE installers

Next, you need to download the Synergy/DE (SDE) installers. These provide command line tools for developing, compiling, linking, running, and licensing your DBL applications.

  1. Visit the Synergex Resource Center: Go to https://resources.synergex.com/SiteDownloads.

  2. Log in: Use your Resource Center account to log in. If you don’t have an account, you’ll need to contact Synergex to get one.

  3. Download installers: Download the three latest Windows installers:

    • Synergy/DE 64-bit (104)
    • Synergy/DE 32-bit (101)
    • SDI 32-bit (101)

Step 3: Install Synergy/DE

Now, install Synergy/DE on your machine. First run the downloaded Synergy/DE 64-bit (104) installer, and then run the Synergy/DE 32-bit (101) installer. Follow the on-screen instructions and pay close attention to step 4 below to complete the installations.

Step 4: Configure licensing

During the installation of Synergy/DE, you’ll need to configure the licensing.

  1. License configuration prompt: If this is the first time Synergy/DE has been installed on your machine, you will be prompted for license configuration.

  2. Select licensing type:

    • Choose License Server or Stand-alone (Local Licensing) if you have a unique licensee name provided by Synergex.
    • Choose License Client if you need to specify the name of a license server.

  3. Enter license details:

    • For License Server or Stand-alone: Enter the unique licensee name given by Synergex.
    • For License Client: Enter the name of your license server. If you install 32-bit Synergy/DE on a machine with 64-bit Synergy/DE network server licensing, the server name for the 32-bit installation defaults to the 64-bit machine’s name.

Step 5: Install Synergy/DE Visual Studio Integration

Now install Synergy/DE Integration for Visual Studio (SDI) by running the SDI 32-bit (101) installer. This will integrate Synergy/DE with Visual Studio 2022.

Step 6: Verify the installation

After installation, it’s good practice to verify that everything is set up correctly.

  1. Verify licensing: Open a command prompt and run "%SYNERGYDE64%\dbl\dblvars64.bat" && lmu. This should display the licensing information for your machine.

Conclusion

You have now successfully set up the DBL programming environment on your Windows machine using Visual Studio 2022. In the future when someone says to go to a DBL command prompt or ensure DBL environment variables have been configured in your command prompt, you can just run "%SYNERGYDE64%\dbl\dblvars64.bat", which will bring in the environment variables required to build/run DBL code in 64-bit. If you need the 32-bit version instead, you can just replace the “64” parts in that command with “32” and run "%SYNERGYDE32%\dbl\dblvars32.bat". Now we can move on to creating our first DBL program.